Kinzo Ushiromiya

(Redirected from Goldsmith)
Kinzo Ushiromiya
右代宮 金蔵
Character Information
TitleGoldsmith
ClassificationHuman
Sorcerer
GenderMale
BirthdayAugust 17
Zodiac SignLeo
Blood TypeO
Hair ColorWhite
Eye ColorBlue
First AppearanceLegend of the Golden Witch
Portrayed By
Relationships

Kinzo Ushiromiya (右代宮 金蔵, Ushiromiya Kinzō) is the aged head of the Ushiromiya family and a major character in Umineko no Naku Koro ni. His vast fortune is a source of conflict for his children, who often fight over the inheritance.

Profile

The aged head of the Ushiromiya family.

Even though it has already been announced that he has just a few months left to live, he is brimming with energy. Though he amassed a vast fortune in the past, he never made any announcements about his inheritance, which worries his children.

He is strongly influenced by the West and is a rabid fan of the occult. His study is packed with mysterious grimoires.

Kinzo’s name as a sorcerer is Goldsmith.

His skill as a summoner is legendary for the current era. His summoning ability surpasses even Beatrice’s. However, he is very mismatched, and while he does excel in some areas, he is fatally lacking as a sorcerer in others. He can’t even use enough magic to reheat black tea, but it is possible for him to summon demons that can use enough magic to boil the sea.

The source of his magic is found in arithmetic miracles, and his magical compendium is unique. Later on, Beatrice also took notice of this and rearranged her own magical compendium.

Background

Kinzo was born into a branch of the then-weakening Ushiromiya family in Odawara. He spend most of his childhood in his hometown of Taihoku, Taiwan with his longtime friend Genji Ronoue. After the Great Kantō Earthquake, family elders of the main branch appointed Kinzo as family head as a puppet in order to further their own agendas. Kinzo was forced to marry the daughter of an aristocratic family and fathered Krauss, Eva, Rudolf, and Rosa.

Kinzo enlisted himself in the military at the start of World War II and was tasked with setting up facilities for the Navy construction team. As a result, he was stationed at a remote military base on Rokkenjima in order to help construct a hidden armory of Kaiten torpedoes. A group of Italians arrived on the island in 1944 due to a gas leak on their submarine which killed a majority of their crew. Kinzo was chosen by Lieutenant Yamamoto to be an interpreter as Kinzo was the only one of the Japanese that could speak the common language of English. Kinzo bonded with the Italian interpreter, Beatrice Castiglioni, and the two became close friends. After learning about the ten tons of gold the Italians were storing on the island, Lieutenant Yamamoto decided to attack the Italians and steal the gold. The Japanese sneak attack failed and a fight broke out between both sides which ultimately ended with every soldier of both sides dying, save both Kinzo and Beatrice. The two escaped to the nearby island of Niijima with a few of the gold bars which Kinzo used to revive the glory of the Ushiromiya family. It was on Niijima that Kinzo met Terumasa Nanjo, the doctor who would treat Beatrice's wounds from the fight and later become one of Kinzo's closest friends.

During Kinzo's glory days as the wealthy Ushiromiya head, Kinzo had an affair with Beatrice and fathered a child. Beatrice died during childbirth, causing Kinzo to fall into madness and invest himself almost exclusively in the dark arts in an attempt to revive her. His illegitimate child grew to heavily resemble his dead lover and Kinzo, in his madness, believed her to be the reincarnation of Beatrice herself. He forced himself on her and eventually fathered another child. In order to cover this up, Genji Ronoue asked Krauss's wife Natsuhi to take in the child and raise it as her own.

In most timelines, Natsuhi rejects the child and watches both the child and a servant fall off a cliff, dying instantly. Upon hearing of his child's death, Kinzo immersed himself further in the occult, this time to revive his dead daughter and to apologize for his actions. Unbeknownst to Kinzo, the child miraculously survived the fall and went on to become a servant at the Ushiromiya household named Sayo Yasuda.

Years later, Kinzo noticed a scar on Shannon's foot where a sixth toe would have been. Kinzo begins to suspect Shannon to be his long lost child. in April 1984, Kinzo hung a large portrait of Beatrice in the main hall. As he fell further ill, Kinzo created the witch's epitaph in hopes that his child would reveal themselves to him. Sayo manages to solve the riddle on the epitaph and Kinzo finally learns the truth about his child. After his death, Genji, Sayo, Doctor Nanjo, and Chiyo Kumasawa maintained the illusion that Kinzo was alive per the request of Krauss and Natsuhi.

In the miracle fragment, Natsuhi embraces the child as her own. The child instead grows into Lion Ushiromiya, successor to the Ushiromiya family head.

Appearance

Kinzo appears in the game as a very old man with a receding hair line, a small beard and a mustache. His outfit consists of a white suit with the One-Winged Eagle emblazoned on his pants and on the collar of his red shirt. His black cape also has the One-Winged Eagle imprinted on it.

When Kinzo was younger he appeared to look very similar to Battler but with white hair. He wore a tan shirt, tan shorts and a white undershirt as part of his military garb.

Though not visible to the player, Kinzo has a sixth toe on each foot, a unique feature often used to identify his corpse. It was considered to be a symbol of luck by the former elders of the Ushiromiya family.

Plot

Requiem of the Golden Witch

Kinzo appears during Beatrice's funeral and cries over her casket. He is later interrogated by Willard H. Wright and Lion Ushiromiya about his history with Beatrice Castiglioni, leading to an extended retelling of his time in World War II.

Trivia

  • Kinzo is fluent in English and Chinese.
  • Kinzo and Genji refer to each other as Kin-chan and Gen-chan when they play chess alone, a symbol of their life-long friendship.
  • The name "Goldsmith" is a pen name derived from the name "Kinzo" read in English. Strictly speaking, Gold Warehouse is a more direct translation, something that Kyrie Ushiromiya points out in Alliance of the Golden Witch.
  • In his youth, Kinzo got into the habit of chewing areca nuts.

See also